Criminal; Search and Seizure; Whether Records from Defendant's Cell Phone
Should have been Suppressed; Whether Uncharged Misconduct Evidence was
Improperly Admitted; Whether State Improperly Used Defendant's Post-Miranda
Silence. In January, 2002, Carlos Barradas was fatally shot in Norwalk. The following month, Mamaroneck, New York police, who were investigating drug
sales at the defendant's apartment, obtained a search warrant. Norwalk police, who were investigating the defendant for the Barradas homicide, were
invited to observe the search. After finding only the defendant's girlfriend at
the apartment and seizing a quantity of cocaine, the officers noticed the defendant
driving nearby and arrested him. They found his cell phone on the vehicle's
front passenger seat and later obtained the defendant's cell phone records. The
police also obtained a statement from the defendant's girlfriend implicating him
in the murder. Thereafter, the defendant was arrested for murder and was
interviewed after he waived his Miranda rights. He made certain
statements before invoking his right to remain silent, and the interview was terminated.
Before trial, the defendant sought to suppress evidence of his cell phone
records, which the state claimed established that he had traveled from
Mamaroneck to Norwalk on the night of the murder. The trial court denied the
motion to suppress. It determined that the cell phone was lawfully seized because,
although the warrant did not specifically list cell phones, it allowed for the
seizure of drug paraphernalia as well as evidence that a named person was
participating in a drug offense. The cell phone, it concluded, was covered by
the warrant. The court further ruled that the inevitable discovery doctrine
applied. The defendant also sought to preclude the state from introducing
evidence that, at an earlier time, he kidnapped a woman and held her at
gunpoint in the same location in Norwalk as the murder. The state claimed that
this prior misconduct evidence was admissible on the issue of identity because the
similarities between the charged and uncharged crimes were sufficient to
establish them as signature crimes. The court admitted the evidence, noting
that its probative value outweighed its prejudicial effect. After a jury trial
at which the cell phone records, the uncharged misconduct evidence and
testimony as to the interview at the police station were introduced, the
defendant was convicted of murder. On appeal, the defendant claims that the
warrant did not cover the search of his person or the seizure and subsequent
search of his cell phone, that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the
phone's contents, that there were no exceptions to the warrant requirement that
justified the warrantless search and that the inevitable discovery doctrine did
not apply. He also argues that it was improper to admit the uncharged
misconduct evidence because it did not satisfy the stringent test required of
signature crimes. In addition, he contends that the state elicited evidence
that he invoked his right to remain silent during questioning by the police and
that this fact was used as evidence of his guilt, in violation of Doyle
v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976).